When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. – Exodus 17:12

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 27, 2018): Exodus 17

One of President’s Trump’s promises, as he campaigned for the position of President of the United States, was that he would hire the best people. What he may have found out is that that is one of the harder promises on which to follow through. Every national leader wants to surround themselves with the best people, and no national leader is equipped with all of the answers, but there are a couple of major obstacles to the task of surrounding ourselves with the best. The first is the ego of the leader. The best people want to be listened to, and if the leader is unwilling to take the advice of the experts, the experts are unlikely to stay around for long. But the second obstacle is loyalty. In an interview on Fox News in August 2018, President Trump spoke about the appointment of Jeff Sessions as head of the Justice Department. The President, who promised to hire and appoint only the best people, admitted that the Sessions appointment was a loyalty appointment. It was not that Jeff Sessions was the best, but rather that Sessions had been one of the earliest supporters of Trump’s bid for President. Loyalty to supporters often colors our opinion of best. The best, then, become, not the most knowledgeable about a situation, but rather the one who is knows something and is the most loyal, and therefore, hopefully, the one who will most often agree with the leader’s thinking and position.

Admittedly, we know very little about the political arrangements of Moses and his leaders. But one thing the Bible speaks clearly about is that the leading of Israel was more than a one-person job. In this case, Joshua led the army into battle against the Amalekites. It was something that Moses, now past eighty years of age, could not do. There is no doubt that Moses was the leader of the movement, but the battle needed to be placed in younger hands. Moses was not a David who, early in his reign, was often seen as a warrior king.

Moses was relegated to supporting the battle in prayer. But that did not mean that Moses had the easier part of the task. True prayer is hard work; it is a struggle that we agree to enter into with God. And Moses, a man who had an intimate relationship with God, needed help. In this case, Aaron and Hur were the ones who rushed to Moses’s aid.

We are not sure why the symbol of Moses raised hands were important to the battle, but it might have been as simple as the army, seeing their leader in a battle with God, were encouraged as they saw Moses’s raised arms. But that encouragement faltered as Moses grew tired, and the soldiers began to feel their own fatigue. The sight of three men engaging God on behalf of the soldiers kept the battle energized.

But the truth of the story is that no matter the task, we need help. And the best help that is available is always the ones who are willing to enter into the process of our engagement with God. We all need our Aaron and our Hur.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Exodus 18